Several users have reported an issue in which Adobe Photoshop CS3 and other CS3 apps fail to launch properly under Mac OS X 10.6.3. In some cases, the application launches then immediately quits; in others the dock bounces in the icon and proceeds no further.
Possible solutions
- Turn off Rosetta mode. Photoshop CS3 may fail to launch under Mac OS X 10.6.3 if Rosetta mode is enabled. To disable Rosetta mode, select the Photoshop application icon in the Finder, then go to the File menu and choose Get Info. Deselect the checkbox called “Open using Rosetta.”
- Clear caches with AppleJack. Some users have reported success with clearing system and user caches via the indispensable utility AppleJack. Download AppleJack and install it, then restart your Mac in single-user mode by holding down the command and S keys at startup. At the prompt, type “applejack auto restart” (with no quotation marks) and press return. [note that while AppleJack 1.5 is technically incompatible with Snow Leopard, only the “repair permissions” function fails, which is not necessary for this process. If you’d like, you can use an alternative cache clearing tool such as YASU.]
- Revert to Mac OS X 10.6.2. As a last resort, you can downgrade to an earlier version of Snow Leopard using the “Archive and Install” feature from your Mac OS X installation disc as described here.